Sixteen – Introducing Nephele

The next two weeks went well for the Coronet.

To Therion’s amusement, the Sirena was an instant hit with the clients. She was not different enough from a human or elf to scare away even the most “timid” of his customers (though the thought that a group of rapists could be described that way was very amusing to the god), but she was exotic enough that it seemed like everyone wanted to try her out. She was rarely put on display for longer than five minutes before someone had claimed her, and Therion had Hendrek raise her price over and over as the days went by. It didn’t seem to have any effect on her popularity… within a week of her being dragged away from his room, she was already one of his top earners.

It made him wonder how much Viconia could make for him… but for the time being, he was content with her as she was, leaning to serve him as a priestess. After all, it wouldn’t do to make her numb to the process of being raped over and over by making her just a common whore to the town, now would it? After all, it was she who had to “repair” the Sirena’s holes twice in her first week.

Mazzy’s punishment had not ended yet, but rather been kicked up to another level. The day after her time in the Arena, Mazzy was fed, and then taken from her meal down to a special room. A low tank, around two feet high by four feet wide, ran the length of the room. Chair-like rigs were fixed to the edges of the tank in rows on either side, with harnesses attached to them.

Therion had thought of this some time ago, but it had just completed construction recently… a way to break in especially stubborn slaves to their new lives. It was perhaps ironic that the first girl to suffer through it had been one of the most obedient, submissive sluts in the Coronet, but Korgen had wanted to try it out with Aerie… and he had liked it so much he swore he’d come back every day, much to her screams of protest. When Mazzy was brought in, weakly struggling against the hold on her, there was only one girl there, strapped into one of the chairs. She figured it must be Grahka, the orc girl, by her skin tone but she couldn’t tell for sure, couldn’t see the girl’s face, because her head was being held under water in the tank.

But she could see the lust-frenzied guards that was holding it there, and plowing the poor girl ass while she kicked and struggled.

As Mazzy watched in absolute horror, the guard tugged Grahka’s face up out of the pool, just look enough for her to gasp a single breath before she was plunged forward and submerged again. He hen waited patiently, impaled on her, holding her down until she began to struggle, her legs kicking, her back arching. Then he began fucking her again.

In the corner, there was a weeping blond girl chained to the wall, and the halfling recognized Ahara. How far the proud priestess of Shar had already fallen was terrifying to Mazzy… the way she was kept weeping at the mere prospect of more torment to her. She was being kept here, Mazzy was sure, in her new role as a slave priestess to that bastard demigod, in case one of the guards got sloppy in there torture and a girl needed to be healed.

Her struggles growing more frantic as she was dragged toward the tank, the halfling nevertheless found herself strapped into the chair, her thighs spread, her arms tied behind her back. Barely seconds later, one of the guards who had gone through all the trouble of dragging the fighting girl down here pressed up behind her, thrusting himself into her tight asshole… but as much as that hurt, the real torture began a moment later when Mazzy felt his hand grip her hair. The diminutive girl barely had time to scream before she was pushed forward into the water.

Almost instantly, accidentally, she gasped, breathing water in through her nose, and began to choke. She found herself struggling frantically, smothering. And as she struggled, she felt the man’s cock pumping ferociously in and out of her rectum. As her body screamed for air, Mazzy thrashed like a demon possessed victim, her body spasming uncontrollably. When she felt that her lungs were about to burst, she abruptly found herself hauled out of the water. She gasped for breath, but barely had time to draw in a single lungful before the hand thrust her back down into the water and the fucking continued.

The damned guard had to repeat this process two more times before he finally came, and the flooding of her asshole with hot cum was almost a relief to the girl. She remained strapped in the chair, breathing hard, whimpering pathetically. She already felt broken after only a few moments of this… but just seconds later, she felt another man fumbling at her cunt. The cruel cock slide up into her, and two hands tangled in her hair.

An instant later, she was back underwater. She was better prepared this time, having managed a deep breath before being forced under, but she soon realized that it was for nothing. The man wasn’t fucking her. He was simply waiting, his cock up inside her, until her air started to run out and she began to struggle. She held onto her breath for dear life, but eventually, her body’s instincts took over. She began to twitch, to gasp, to struggle hopelessly for breath. And as she began to struggle, the man finally began to fuck her.

She would be down here for a month, or until she gasped out breathless prayer for Therion to impale her on his cock, day in and day out, for the rest of her life, each and every single time she was allowed to breathe. Therion didn’t know which he hoped for more – for her to break, or to suffer the entire month.

Ryla was absolutely as good as her word. Within days of her leaving, the first group of beast masters entered the city through the sewers, their black, tightly sealed wagons remaining carefully out of sight of the townfolk. Once inside, the Arena had a new treat – it became a huge attraction to watch unruly slaves suffer at the hands of truly inhuman monsters… although Therion idly wondered how many girls’ lives it had cost for the beastmasters to train some of them not to eat their captives.

Displacer beasts quickly became the absolute crowd favorite. Hulking huge cats with arrays of vicious tentacles, capable of restraining a girl and violating all of her holes at once, the Arena seldom had an empty seat when they were to perform. Therion quickly turned it into a game, setting a dozen or so slaves free and allowing them to defend themselves as a group in the Arena. The crowds cheers when the pack of teleporting predators overwhelmed them, picking them off one by one and subjecting them to a more vicious rape than any of the men in the stands could hope to offer, were deafening.

This wasn’t, however, to say that everything was going perfectly. There was one problem.

Shandra.

Therion had quickly lost patience with her. While, as before, her enthusiasm was somewhat endearing, her teasing was quickly getting out of hand. It wasn’t that she was unskilled as a torturer or less than thrilled about teaching one of his whores her place, turning her into the most efficient money making machine for the Coronet as she could be… it was that she seemed to take her implied immunity from reprisal to heart.

All of the guards knew that she was an ally of his, that she was not to be touched. They made sure every client to walk through the doors knew that as well… and she took full advantage. She routinely wore nothing, or so little that it was even more enticing than if she had been nude. She rejoiced in pressing her body against guards as they passed in the hallway, “flirting,” if it could be called that, with customers, and in general making the cocks of anyone near her painfully hard.

And around him, it was even worse. She was perfectly submissive to him, perfectly worshipful at all times… and she still managed to brush against bare skin of his at every opportunity, find him and arouse him during the rare occasions he was not working on another slave. She seemed completely insufferable in her joy to tease anything with a cock…

And Therion was tired of it.

In the long run, it would only cause problems. Who knew when one of his customers or his guards would simply lose it and fuck her right then and there, despite Therion’s explicit orders? He would have to reinforce his authority by killing the poor man, despite his own resentments against the cheerful slut. No, he would not have it.

Which was why, after overhearing two guards outside his throne room – thanks to his improved senses – complain about “that teasing bitch,” he was finally fed up with her. Grumbling, cursing under his breath, he stood up and began to search for her… Which was not as easy as he’d thought, since she was not currently engaging in any sexual violence, which meant that his divine senses did not pick her up.

As usual, she had been all over the place during the last few hours, “flirting” and teasing. Her own quarters were empty save for a sobbing Violet, who’d been chained to the surface of the table, a large dildo stuck in her ass. Unable to pass this chance up, Therion violated her mouth and throat for a few short moments before feeding her a portion of his cum and leaving again.

After a few more fruitless minutes of searching, he came upon Kyon, who was standing in one of the lower hallways. Kneeling before him, her hands tied together behind her back, was Ssatha. The high priest of the Ravager was busy fucking the snake-woman’s face as violently as possible, making her gag hard and loud, drool running down her chin in a veritable river.

“My… Lord,” Kyon acknowledged him with a nod, but did not stop his abuse of the Yuan-Ti, knowing that Therion would never expect him to… quite the contrary. Therion grunted a response, looking down at the Yuan-Ti, who was certainly not enjoying this. He could feel the hatred and pain radiate from her. “Is this punishment or just taking your rightful pleasure from this whore?” he asked.

“Punishment, Lord. It seems a few weapons have gone missing from the guard lockers. And this cunt here is responsible for inventory. Hendak is looking for the missing weapons as we speak and I took it upon myself to punish her. Lord, may I ask for a portion of your virility? I mean to take her down to the cellar later and would like to have my full strenght.”

At the mentioning of the cellar, Ssatha’s eyes widened and she tried to protest, but his cock was lodged way too deep down her throat. Therion nodded, glaring down at the Yuan-Ti. “Pray, you little slut, that this was just an inventory oversight. Try and work against me and what happens to Mazzy will feel like nothing compared to what I shall do with you!”

Turning to Kyon again, he placed a hand on the priest’s shoulder and sent some of his boundless energy towards him. Now, the priest would not need to rest at all during the next hours, no matter how often he raped the girl. “Do you know where Shandra is? I need to have.. .words with her”, he said, growling.

Kyon nodded. “At the beast cages. Enticing the creatures for the next arena fight.”

Therion did not bother to thank him. Now, guided by one set goal, he made his way to the cages…and bumped right into the novice priestess. ‘Enticing the creatures…’ Yes, and everyone else as well. She wore nothing except a black leather thong and knee-high boots of the same material.

“Oh, Lord Therion,” she said, smiling softly, placing a hand against his chest, as if to steady herself, although it certainly was not necessary, “Forgive me… I hadn’t seen you.” A bright smile crossed her face. “How was your day?”

Therion glared at her, which she either ignored or did not notice altogether. “ Aside from one major annoyance, fine,” he said.

In response, she cocked her head, taking a step closer to him. “What might that be, my lord?” she asked, giving him a submissive glance, her tits lightly brushing against his arm. He felt his anger flare up more hotly. She really was asking for this!

With one quick motion, he grabbed her around the throat, nearly crushing her windpipe, and slammed her against the wall. “YOU! You think yourself beyond reprisal while you walk around like a common dock whore, making everyone around here hard, knowing they could not lay a hand on you. But there you are wrong… I can and I WILL!” Keeping his hand around her throat so tight she could not utter a sound, he dragged his hand down her mostly naked body, tear the remnants of clothing from her body.

“Now, you were practically begging for my cock and you shall get it. I will have your screams!”

Shandra’s lips moved as if she wanted to speak, but she could not… she could draw no air past her choked throat, could not even whisper a sound no matter how hard she tried. He felt the hungry eyes of dozens of beasts, all trained for rape, all hungry for female flesh, watching him and especially her as he pressed her firmly against the wall, lifting her so her feet dangled as his other hand pushed into her cunt.

She was wet, but that was unavoidable. She’d been enjoying her teasing all day, and he’d interrupted her in the process of doing more of the same. It wasn’t the way he preferred his pussy, but he’d kill her arousal soon enough with brutality… no amount of lubrication would make the things he intended to do to this slut any easier to bear.

As he took down his pants, Therion was already hard as stone… more aroused by the process of breaking this girl than he had expected to be. Perhaps it was because it had never set right with him that there was a cunt in this place who hadn’t experienced the terror of rape weighing on his divine station. Perhaps it was because she reminded him of his sister, as cheerful and carefree as she had been once… and he was looking forward to having that back beneath him for a moment before he raped it back into oblivion… that was likely it. Regardless, he was as aroused as he had been in weeks now that the bitch was vulnerable before him.

Pressing his body against her, he put his cock at the entrance to her tight, pretty hole and finally loosened his grip holding Shandra against the wall, letting her slide down against him and impale herself slowly on his rod. She might be slick, but it didn’t go in easily… she was clearly unaccustomed to taking a man of his size, and even with the entire weight of her body to help him her tight cunt resisted him ever step of the way, slowly stretching to let him enter.

Therion was not inclined to wait. Gripping her around her narrow waist, he slammed her down, impaling her completely and forcing her tiny gash wide around his huge cock. The priestess screamed in pain, and the dark god felt it wash over him… it pleased him to know she was hurting so badly. Behind him, he could hear a dozen beasts echoing the scream, voicing their own pleasure and lust to the sounds of a woman in distress.

Her tight gash gripped him like a fist, squeezing his shaft like a vice as as he drove into it, hilting himself completely and dragging another breathless scream from the girl. He held her in both hands, using the wall as a pin as he drew back and then rammed into her over and over again, using her like the fucktoy she wanted to be. She’d wanted his cock… how did she like it now, the cocky bitch?

This was precisely what Shandra needed. Whores could be useful, like the Yaun-ti slut, like his priestess Ahara, but only after they learned their place. Once the cunt learned her, once she stopped prancing about like a cocktease among her betters, then she could be a useful part of this alliance.

Such was his enjoyment of her screams, the way her hands clawed at him in an attempt to make him let her go, that it took him a minute to realize that she’d actually grown more wet since he started, that his cock was completely slick with her warm juices. Therion was shocked. He reached into his divine senses but found that he hadn’t been mislead – he was stretching her horribly, was hurting her. He could feel her pain washing over him like waves of the surf, crashing against him… Shandra just didn’t see to came.

Beneath the pain, he could feel honest pleasure. The cunt was enjoying this! The thought made him more than a little queasy, but he grimaced and threw her to the ground. She might enjoy this, despite the pain even, but he was willing to bet a little cocktease like her had never taken it up the ass before… he wondered how she would enjoy the Ravager up her tender backdoor?

He closed his eyes and allowed the change to overcome him, his mortal flesh replaced by something altogether different. Where the first transformations had cost some effort and caused him quite a bit of pain, by now Therion fully relished the sensation of his muscles, blood and bones realigning in accordance to the divinity that grew inside his soul.

He could feel Shandra’s eyes on him, marveling at his transformation, as she always did. She could barely keep her eyes off of him in his human form, but she had never for once looked at his Ravager form with anything but pure adoration. Not that he had ever cared for it, a look of terror on her face would have been much more welcome.

The beasts growled and snarled, the primal fear in their brains vying with the waves of pure sexual greed he gave off when in this form. Therion glared around, seeing all of them cower in their cages, although their eyes were alight with lust. They knew who the true apex predator in the room was at this moment. In this form, he could tear every single one of them to shreds, most likely even that… thing in the back, perpetually hidden underneath the black blanket.

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Shandra try to move. Though he was not sure whether she was scampering closer to him or away, he slammed his clawed foot down onto her, pinning the girl in place, her pained gasp sending a trickle of pleasure down his spine. His cock, massive enough to put the average ogre to shame, was already fully erect, glistening with precum and the remnants of her juices. Therion growled. He would make sure that she would not enjoy this one bit.

Reaching down, his massive hand clamped around her throat, lifting her up just as he removed his foot from her body, his claws painfully scratching over her skin. “Is this what you want, you greedy bitch?” he snarled, frothy spittle flying from his over sized jaw, nodding towards his massive erection. He watched as she followed the motion, her eyes staring in a mixture of shock and admiration at his throbbing member.

She was still not suitably afraid! He resisted the urge to growl in frustration and anger. In this form, his inhibitions were even lower than in his human body and he needed to make sure not to get too angry. He did not want to destroy her and risk the precious alliance. This cunt was not worth it… which was the reason he closed his hand around her throat enough to keep her from talking. Right now, he was not certain if the sound of her voice would not be enough to set the Ravager off.

Instead, he slammed her against the Displacer Beast cage, rattling the bars and setting the beasts on edge even more. Roughly and with much more fury than necessary, he turned her around, slamming her into the bars again, hoping that the bruises would remind her not to tease him or any of the customers again.

“And now, my dear guest… let’s see if you are just as eager to get that cock up your asshole,” he growled, pointing the massive organ at the entrance to her tightest hole. It looked ridiculously over sized. It was only his divine power that allowed him to force it in without doing permanent damage, although for them it still felt like he was tearing them apart. Imoen knew that all too well…

The Displacer Beast snarled, its tentacles whipping through the air, one of them catching Shandra’s left breast, making her gasp in pain… a heartbeat before her scream echoed through the room, waking every single beast and rattling the bars again. For Therion had just rammed the head of his cock right into her tight hole, pushing into the overstretched opening with impunity!

Therion roared in time with her scream as he pressed his cock forward into her, burying himself entirely within her tight body. He had no idea if the woman had ever been fucked like this before, but her anal virginity or lack thereof was completely irrelevant… the way his cock was stretching her, she could have been fucked by a horse before and he wouldn’t have noticed it. Her screams vibrated her entire body around his shaft while she trembled and shook, his cock sliding as deeply into her as he could second after second until her clenching hot hole had swallowed his entire length.

Snarling with lust, he gripped his claws into her ass hard enough that he drew tiny points of blood and pulled his length almost entirely from his body, then with a roar he smashed his weight forward. The arm-thick cock smashed into her, slamming the entire length into her in an instant. The force of the cruel rape-thrust smashed her body into the bars of the cage with bruising force, and pushed her even closer to the feral beasts already snarling of a bit of her feminine flesh for her own.

Again and again, he pulled himself out and slammed back into her, using Shandra’s tight body as an unwilling sheath for his cock. One movement of his monstrous hips at a time, he took another piece of pleasure from her pain, feeling it roll over him and against his skin, savoring it as the sacred energy of his divinity.

He wasn’t actually doing damage to her, but it felt to the priestess like he was. It hurt like he was ripping her to pieces, destroying her body one cruel thrust at a time, ruining her, killing her. It must be the worst pain she had ever felt…

So why was the slut starting to fucking enjoy having her ass torn apart?

Even as Therion used her as harshly as he possibly could, her screaming took on a breathy tone, and her cunt was still dripping against his balls as they slapped into one with each devastating thrust. It made no sense, and the dark god began to use her even more harshly, loosening the hold of his power on her and letting himself cause some slight damage… nothing he couldn’t heal, but enough to make it even more agonizing. He needed to make her hurt… but the more she hurt, the less of her pain was uncontaminated with a sicking swirl of pleasure.

Then the whore came.

Trembling, screaming in a mix of agony and ecstasy, Shandra’s body jerked and spasmed, and would have fallen to the floor if she wasn’t pinned against the cage by Therion’s cock. The scream was loud, echoing, and high pitched, but to his utter disgust it wasn’t an sound of pain but purest pleasure. The feelings coming from her body suddenly felt poisonous to him, and his skin shuddered with disgust, like it was trying to crawl away from him. Then, for the first time he could remember since his brother had shown him the truth of his divine heritage, his arousal died completely and he felt himself beginning to grow limp inside the priestess.

Snarling in anger and disgust, he tore himself from the dark haired girl’s body, leaving her shuddering and jerking on the floor, a small ring of bright red blood around her ass as it twitched in time with her pussy, writhing in enjoyment. “You fucking bitch,” he breathed, furious. “Worthless slut… can’t even get raped properly.”

This had never happened before. Therion judged that there were few humans, divinely descended or not, who had sampled as much unwilling flesh as he had, and never had he encountered a woman who would enjoy the most brutal things he would do to them. He wanted to tie her to a rack, to whip the flesh from her body, to make her jerk and spasm as she was tortured to within an inch of her life, but he was certain she would enjoy it. She would enjoy anything he did to her, provided that he did it.

He growled in frustration again before the thought occured to him. What if it wasn’t him doing it? Granted, he could hardly turn her over to the patrons or to others of his band, not without risking the alliance he needed so badly… but a grin spread over his face slowly as he realized there were other things.

“Oh Shandra,” he said, and suddenly his voice was sickly sweet, tinged once again with malice. “You were so unkind earlier, teasing all the animals, baiting them to be ready for their shows…” He picked up Shandra in one huge hand and opened the door to the pack of Displacer Beasts with the other. “I think you need to lean a lesson about why you shouldn’t be a cockteaser,” he said, and tossed her in.

Normally, he would have waited to see what the beasts would do to her – he’d spent one rather amusing afternoon after tossing a half-elven slave to the tentacled thing in the far corner, watching how it raped her and drove her to madness in the process – but right now, he was too disgusted with Shandra to do anything but walk out, forcing the sensation of nausea from his stomach.

“Make sure she stays inside for the night”, he growled to the guard outside, slamming the door shut behind him. He did not even want to listen to her screams anymore. Instead, he went back to his quarters, where he, without any further words, descended upon Holes, drawing screams from her that carried none of that hated pleasure.

He planned to spend the next days avoiding Shandra, sending Hendak or Ssatha to deal with her. Her mere appearance sent waves of revulsion and rage through his body, enough to nearly made him rip her head off. It would certainly take a while before he could resist that urge, so he decided it would be wise to avoid the whore for a time.

Fortunately, fate soon provided a suitable distraction…

• – – – –

Nephele looked around with a profound sense of distaste. The slums of Athkatla were not exactly a place where she would like to be. But, according to those who had known them, this was the place where her daughters had last been seen.

Which did not bode well. Not at all.

The halfling priestess of Yondalla had heard rumours about this place, a center of human misery and squalor the likes of which one would never find in a halfling township. Given how many temples of good human gods there were, it was a mystery to her why no one had made a concerted effort to help these poor people.

But then again, humans were a strange bunch. There was a reason why she had never felt the need to go out into the lands of the tallfolk, unlike her adventurous daughters.

“Urgh,“ she made when she noticed she had stepped in something better not examined too closely. To call these alleys “streets” would have been an insult to roads everywhere. Fortunately, Nephele had decided against wearing skirts and instead opted for pants and a simple leather armor. She’d no need for plate, knowing that, in a pinch, her agility, swiftness and the goddess would protect her.

Really, she was not worried about herself. Not even the stares of some of the male derelicts could unnerve her. She knew she was pretty, still keeping a youthful appearance and a fit, well-rounded shape, and she turned quite a few heads wherever she went. But none of these people were any threat to her. She only wished her daughters to be safe.

But all the rumors she had heard had been rather unwelcome. The last time either of them had been seen they’d been in the vicinity of the Copper Coronet, a place that had become a fleck of deeper darkness within the squalor of the slums.

Evil radiated from this place, a tangible force that carried with it the smell of suffering. Nephele’s divinely-attuned senses screamed at her to leave this place along, to turn around and go away. But courage had been one thing she’d never lacked in.

Now, she only needed a way to get inside and find out if her fears were true, if her daughters were really inside… and what had befallen them.

Nephele, however, was not her daughters, not the average citizen. Most magic could not be used within the limits of the city without inviting dire consequences from the Cowled Wizards, but they cared only for sorcery and the arcane. The Goddess Yondalla blessed Nephele’s steps, and she feared the wizards not. Instead, she hefted a small shield shaped amulet from around her neck, the cornucopia embossed into it shining in the dimly reflected light of the alley while she made a small prayer for her daughters safety, and suddenly she was less than solid, more like a rider on the wind than ran through the streets of Athkatla.

The Copper Coronet was not a well build building, old and once decrepit. It’s owners had taken some effort to fortify it from intrusion, but not from the likes of someone like her… to the adventure-wisened halfway, it was almost childsplay to find a crack in the exterior that spread all through the way and force her body through it, her form dissolving and slipping through like an unwanted draft, utterly unstoppable.

Immediately after she entered, she knew that as foul as this place seemed from the outside, as vile as the rumors made it out to be, it was far worse. In her days, Nephele had walked some of the trap-strewn catacombs of Undermountain, braved ancient temples of the fallen Moander, and even been in Luskan when the dead rose from the cemetery district to descent upon the living. Nowhere in all her travels had she stepped foot in a place as desecrated as this. So dark was the shadow it seemed to dim even the brilliance of Yondalla’s light, and while Nephele could still feel the presence of her goddess, it felt like it was coming from far away, muted, some of the heat leeched out.

She shuddered, even more fearful for her daughters than she had been moments before. What foul manner of place could this be, and why was it permitted to exist within the city walls? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She was, like most halfways, graceful. While she lacked the trained dexterity of her pair of trouble-making daughters, the spell more than made up for it. The wind-walk dweomner didn’t turn her invisible, not exactly, but it made her scarcely more than an outline formed of the moving air, and allowed her to move with the speed of a rushing wind. A man would need to be looking closely to notice her, paying attention… and as she quickly realized, all of the men here had greater things to pay attention to.

This place was a whorehouse, as she was warned, but even to her jaded eyes it had more than the average amount of whips and chains. She was far from innocent enough to be caught by surprise that some people liked a touch of pain with their sex — in a lifetime of new experiences, she’d tried it herself more than once — but it took little more than a cursory look around to see that wasn’t the case here. The women were far too beaten down, kept tied and weeping. They weren’t willing girls at all, but slaves kept here against their will.

Men pinning a half-elven girl down to one of the tables, making her suck them off one at a time while they crammed empty bottles of booze up her holes. A crying human girl, barely of age, weeping as she was whipped on the breasts, struggling vainly against the man holding her arms behind her and skewering her ass on his cock. Even one of the proud drow was wincing in pain as she was stretched on a rack on one of the lower levels, a robed man experimenting on her flesh with various dark enchantments to see which she hated the most. With each atrocity she witnessed, her heart burned hotter for the women here. She longed to save them all, but she kept reminding herself that her daughters came first, had to come first. After she had gotten Alora and Lina out of this nightmarish place, she would do everything she could to see it burned to the ground and the women freed.

Sadly, she was beginning to realize that would be much more difficult than she had anticipated. The Copper Coronet stretched a long way down, far further than she had guessed from the look of it, and it was much, much larger, filled with hundreds of rooms. She didn’t have time to check them all, and she risked discovery with each passing minute… not to mention that her windwalking spell would only last so long. She needed a guide of some sort, someone who could at the very least tell her if her daughters were even here.

It took her an hour to find a good prospect, long enough that she had begun to worry about the spell ending too early, and seeking a good place to hide out and rematerialize. At last, however, she found a room with only a single girl in it, with no man guarding her or abusing her. She would need to do. As Nephele pushed herself in through the keyhole, she made certain to knock the tumblers into line… no sense risking being locked inside and needing to waste further magic to escape.

As her feet touched the ground again for the first time in several hours of searching, the halfling priestess immediately realized that the woman was in worse shape than she had originally though. Barely an inch of the blonde girls skin was not covered with whip welts, and it was only a miracle or some enchantment that had kept her from succumbing to infection. Her pale blonde hair cascaded down over her face, hiding her eyes as she slept, and with a start of horror Nephele realized that there was some crude object was lodged into her ass, holding her sphincter painfully open with a length of ashen stone.

“Hey,” she whispered, almost afraid to talk any louder, almost afraid to reach out and touch the sleeping girl for risk of hurting her. “Hey, tough girl, wake up…” she whispered, trying to sound strong, trying to be encouraging. The woman’s eyes flew open her head craning back and her hair flying about her face, and for a horrifying instant Nephele could swear that she saw someone else, a dark skinned and haired woman, in those wide pupils before she blinked rapidly and they were blue eyes again.

The wakened woman gasped. “Are you… real…” she whispered, almost afraid.

“Yes,” Nephele said, trying again to be encouraging with her tone, with her body language. “Can you help me? I’ll get you out of here, but I need your help to…”

The woman interrupted her. “An intruder, here? Impossible…” She blinked again rapidly. “Lord Therion will surely show me his favor now… he will surely show me mercy now!” Her voice was growing louder, more frantic with each world.

“Shhh,” Nephele said, “You need to calm down, stay quiet…”

But Ahara wasn’t listening anymore. She was shouting, interrupting the halfling. “Guards! Intruder! INTRUDER!”

“No! No, no, no…” Nephele said frantically, shaking her head. But the other woman did not stop her screaming, leaving the halfling with the sole option of clamping a small hand over Ahara’s mouth. “Be quiet! I can get you out of here… but only if you stay…”

WHAM!

The door almost flew off its handles as a massive guard entered the room. At first Nephele thought he must be an ogre, but he was too small and, while brutish, looked nowhere as dim as those. “We have a guest? And another halfling!” he said, looking clearly excited. The lustful gaze he cast upon Nephele made her shiver with nausea.

Still, she was not a victim. Holding her hands out from her in a fan-like manner, she sent a quick prayer to Yondalla, focusing the divine power within her. A gust of storm-like wind slammed into the man’s figure, pushing him back and off his feet.

Nephele bolted for the door, but was grabbed from behind. “No! I can’t… let you go….I need his mercy!” It was the woman holding her… she tried to pull Nephele back. In the distance, the halfling priestess could hear footsteps approaching as more guards sounded the alarm. In addition, the large guard stood up again. “Yondalla, grant me the power of…” Nephele began, feeling her body fill up with the might of the truly righteous… but she never finished the prayer. Ahara slammed her elbow into her neck, knocking her out cold.

When she came to again, she immediately had to fight against the wave of pure divine malice that swept over her, so strong that she nearly fainted again before forcing herself fully awake. Something was here, the manifested avatar of a divine being. Nothing else could radiate such an unholy presence.

As the room came back into focus, she saw that she was held in some mockery of a throne room. Her hands had been chained behind her back and she had been forced onto her knees, with the man’s hand resting on top of her head to make sure she stayed that way.

To her divinely-attuned senses, it was easy to find the source of the dark presence now. The unholy energies emanated from the man sitting on the throne opposite her. He looked powerful, with a cruel cast to his face. For all intents and purposes, he seemed human…but Nephele could see the dark power coiling within him, like a nest of oily snaked curling under his skin.

On his lap sat a dark-haired woman of substantial beauty with strange reptilian eyes and softly scaled skin – a Yuan-ti. Her tits jiggled as she bounced up and down on the man’s cock, which was buried fully inside her asshole. From the woman’s expression, she was not enjoying this act at all.

Nephele shuddered again. She had heard a few rumours… but this was starting to widely surpass all of them. By far. Between the man’s legs, another woman knelt, a dark-skinned elf. While the Yuan-ti pleasured him with her anus, she slurped and sucked on his large balls, providing additional pleasure.

Still, despite the stimulation, the man was quite aware of his surroundings, casually addressing Nephele just as if he was not just raping a woman in front of her. “ Another halfling? I seem to attract the smaller girls lately…”

Another… the priestess felt a shiver run down her spine. Did that mean that her daughters were here? And if they were… what had this monster done to them?

“I’m glad that you are awake… mostly. If you hadn’t, it would have been because my slave hit you too hard, and I would have had a reason to punish her for her enthusiasm. Since she didn’t, I suppose I will have to reward her instead.” He made a bit of a face as he gripped the Yuan-ti on his lap and slammed her down harder on his shaft, making her grimace harder than he had. “Not sure I like the idea, but fair is fair, the slut earned it.”

Then he shoved the girl on him forward. His cock slid clear of her even as she tumbled from his throne, falling directly onto the drow woman and causing the two of them to land in a heap, their arms and legs entangling. “Get her out of my sight, Ssasha, and do it quickly or I’ll arrange for you to be handling the drunks when the next ship puts into port.”

The dark haired Yuan-ti scrambled into motion on the stone floor fast enough that it was almost comical. She grabbed the suddenly reticent drow by her upper arm and frantically began to pull her to her feet and from the room. “Hendrak, find some entertainment for darkie, then come back if you want,” he said, directing his gaze into the darkness behind her, where she could not turn to look. “Leave Ssasha to her business, though… she knows what I want her to do already.”

Then his hate-filled gaze fell back on Nephele, and the halfling shudder. Yondala protect her, but all the joy that could be found in the Green Fields could not save her from the chill that the man’s gaze promised. He was no man, she knew… no man could be so evil, no ten men. Rather, he was something else, but while it may still be in the shape of a men, it was as different as a shark and a dolphin.

“Now… you present me with an interesting puzzle,” the lord of the Dark Throne said, gripping his chin with one strong hand. “Not many people come here uninvited, and none so far have come nearly as far as you have. Despite this, I still don’t know how or why you’ve come here, and I obviously can’t have that.” He gave a short chuckle as he finished. “So we are going to play a little game.”

He glanced behind her once again, and she heard movement from behind her bound position, the scrape of boots on stone, the shifting of weight. “I am going to ask you questions. If you don’t give me an answer, or I don’t like the answer you give, my brother is going to drag nine tails of knotted leather across your body, and then we’ll start over. That leather will protect you somewhat… but not for long. We’ll see how long you can keep your lies straight.”

His gaze turned directly back onto her, a death of deathly cold directly into her eyes, and despite herself she shuddered again. “Do you know who I am?”

It seemed a harmless enough question, but still Nephele paused in answering, weighing her options. She apparently hesitated too long, for the man before her nodded. Suddenly she was struck from behind, a heavy, thudding impact that started on her left and moved to the right. If he knees hadn’t been bound in place, it might have knocked her onto her side, but it didn’t cut through the leathers she wore. That blocked any of the sting and dispersed the impact a bit, but still the strength of it had been incredible… she had been hit by an ogre who hadn’t struck that hard.

“So, now comes the fun part,” the man on the throne said smiling. “Are you capable of learning? Let’s find out… Do you know who I am?”

This time, Nephele hesitated only a second. “No,” she said simply.

“A pity,” he said. “I had half hoped my reputation had spread far enough that random do-gooders had begun to try their luck against my hand already. I confess myself disappointed…” He gave a nod, and Nephele only had the quarter second warning of the leather whistling through the air before it against struck her side in nearly the same spot. Once again, the armor held… but she already knew she was going to have one hell of a bruise beneath it if this kept up.

“But I answered…”

“You answered wrong,” the cold voice said, interrupting her. “I didn’t like that answer… but don’t worry, you’ll get more chances to get it right. I am Lord Therion, the master of the Copper Coronet… among other things.” He gave a dark smile. “Is that name familiar to you?”

It was. Mentally, Nephele further increased how much trouble she figured she was in. “You are a bandit, murderer, and rapist wanted across the sword coast. There is a 10,000 gold piece bounty for your head if delivered to the Flaming Fist, and smaller bounties elsewhere.”

The man smiled, and the smile was almost worse than the cold in his eyes. “Only 10,000?” he said, giving an honest grin. “We’ll have to work on that. Still, a much better answer…”

Suddenly, he was serious and cold again. “Alright, let’s start over again then. Hopefully you do it right this time. Who am I?”

“Therion,” She said simply, putting no emotion into the word, distancing herself as much from it as possible.

This time, there was no signal. The whip simply lashed forward, and Nephele could feel it as the armor tore, as a few strands of the whip ripping through to kiss her skin. The necessity of going through the armor first blunted the sting, and it still hurt… how much worse would it be as the leather armor began to tatter?

Even worse, this time, she had watched Therion’s face as the lash struck, and seen how it effected him. It was like watching the tide come in… the dark man seemed to swell with her pain, absorbing it in an instant. At the time time, she felt the desecrating presence grow microscopically stronger. It fed him, she realized to her horror.

“Lord Therion,” he correct quietly, as soon as the whip’s echo had faded.

“Lord Therion,” she echoed, fearful of how much stronger he could become if she continued to resist. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to lie if something darker was asked, if she needed to protect herself or her daughters, but she wouldn’t feed him from something as stupid as this. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

“Good. Now… how did you get in here?”

“I snuck in,” she responded, hoping that this would be enough for him.

For a brief moment, she feared that he might pick up on the lie – or the omission, to be exact – but he simply nodded. “ The famous halfling stealth… your people are a true races of thieves…” Nephele did not react to the barb, too relieved to learn that he was not omniscient and so certain of his power that he would not cast spells to discern lies. “Now, on to the next question… you know my name… but do you know what I am?” he asked. The question seemed innocent enough, but his dark radiance made it obvious that he was not a mere mortal.

Nephele hesitated. Too long, she quickly noticed, crying out as this time, the whip struck flesh, tearing more of her armor off. “I expect you not to try my patience, halfling,” Therion hissed. And although there was a hint of anger in his voice at her audacity to take too long to respond, there was much more joy at her pain to be found. His very shadow grew darker as he took in her agony, however brief.

“Again… who and what am I?” he asked, glaring down at her through not-quite-human eyes.

“Lord Therion”, Nephele hurried to answer the first part of his question. “You are… a rapist and a killer…” she quickly added, having noticed how he delighted in his deeds. It would not insult him enough to have her whipped, she thought.

This time, the whip did not strike her back again but her shoulders, rupturing the armor enough to make the front fall open, leaving her upper body only clad in a simple shirt. She grunted with the impact, though the armor protected her this time. Her protection was rapidly dwindling, though.

“While it is a right answer, it is not the answer I wanted to hear.” He knelt down before her, grabbing her chin to force her to look up at him. “I know you have a connection to the divine. I can feel it, though your weak god cannot protect you here. You know the answer to my question. What am I?”

His touch made her shudder and squirm inside. It was unholy, blighting, and she felt soiled just by this brief moment of contact. She would think him a blackguard, the antithesis of a paladin, but for that, he was too strong, his aura of power too intense. “You… you have a connection to the divine,” she said before the whip could strike again. “But you are no priest or blackguard. A god must have invested you with his power… AAAArghh!” The whip had shredded the back of her shirt and left an ugly mark on her skin, the pain more intense than it had been before.

“Not quick enough. If I am none of these things, what does that leave?”

Nephele swallowed. The possibility was dreadful and she did not want to consider it. “You are a manifest being so you can’t be a god… you must be half-mortal… a demigod…” she whispered, feeling his presence grow as she acknowledged his divinity. It was a dreadful, sinking feeling, as if the very act of her seeing him as divine strengthened him.

“Much better,” he said, smiling. “I am one of the Bhaalspawn and unlike my lesser brethren, I have managed to get a hold of a sliver of true godhood, making me a truly divine being instead of a pretender.” He stepped towards his throne, raising his arms and when he spoke again, his presence seemed to fill the entire room as darkness rose within every nook and cranny. “I am Therion the Ravager, heir of Bhaal. I am the god of slavery and rape, of subjugation and sexual violation of all women alike. And certain punishments await all those who dare defy me or steal from me…”

He pointed at the door, through which at this moment, the naked Yuan-Ti stepped. In her hand, she held a metal chain which was attached to two metal collars encircling the necks of two naked halfling girls.

Nephele gasped, unable to help it. “Alora! Lina!”

“Mother!” Lina cried out in despair and a sudden flare of hope… only to cry out a second time as Sarevok lashed the whip across her tits.

“You do not speak unless spoken to, whore,” the large man growled. And as the young halfling began to cry again, Therion laughed.